During the past year, nine independent Critical Access Hospitals (CAM) located in Michigan's Upper Peninsula joined with the region's only medical center to form the Michigan Upper Peninsula Health Information Technology Network, to: "Improve patient safety and quality of care through the regional planning, development, and implementation of Health Information Technologies." This project will create a web-based, portal / repository application that allows selected clinical information to be accessed by authorized physicians and other health care providers for patient care delivery and quality reporting. The information technology (IT) infrastructure connecting the participants is already in place and used for video teleconferencing & patient education. Network HIT applications will include: (a) HIT systems at each partner hospital that capture and send patient demographic and clinical data to the regional data repository; (b) a regional HIT master patient index /unique patient identifier; (c) a regional HIT interface engine to accept & reformat incoming data from the Partner HIT systems; (d) a regional HIT clinical data repository that contains a consolidated summary of patient information; and (e) a web-based portal viewer allowing clinical information to be accessed by providers. Project goals include: (1) Establish data vocabulary and exchange requirements to ensure comparability and interoperability; (2) Install local network HIT systems in a phased manner; (3) Implement the regional HIT systems and associated support services; (4) Implement the local HIT to regional data sharing components; (5) Analyze & verify the data and technology-related aspects of the project; (6) Evaluate the impact of the HIT Network on patient care delivery; and (7) Evaluate the success of the implementation. During the Planning & Implementation phases, the Partners will contribute $5,746,091of in-kind staff support and HIT systems to the project. The project results will be shared with other Critical Access Hospitals, and other state CAH programs.